Wallet returned to Utah man 44 years later

Jul. 22, 2013

Written by

the Associated Press

OGDEN, Utah (AP) — A Utah man has his wallet back 44 years after leaving it behind in an apartment in Tooele County.

William Jones told Ogden’s Standard-Examiner (http://bit.ly/17vVR9u ) that he received a call out of the blue from a stranger who said she found it.

The 66-year-old Jones said opening the wallet a few weeks later released a flood of memories. He found IDs, family photos and receipts, including one that showed he paid $1,600 for a 1965 Mustang.

The stranger turned out to be Traci England Nelson, the granddaughter of the apartment landlord in 1969, when Jones moved out of the unit to pursue another job in northern Utah.

Nelson said her grandfather, Deloyd England, rented to Jones and other employees of Utah’s Tooele Army Depot and was used to seeing them leave items behind.

England put the wallet in a storage locker in hopes of returning it to its owner, but the wallet wasn’t discovered until after he died in 2000.

Jones said he’s glad Nelson tracked him down because the wallet brought back good memories, including ones about his 1965 Mustang.

“I had a lot of good times in that car … For her to take all that time to find me is incredible,” he told the Standard-Examiner.

He recalled getting off the swing shift at the Army depot with his friend and cruising up and down State Street until 3 a.m.

“(We were) chasing women, of course,” he said. “When we were in the Mustang they’d follow us around. Not that we got any dates. They probably liked the car more than anything else.”

Nelson said her grandfather put other items left behind by tenants in the storage locker, including photo albums, a wedding registry and yearbooks. She’s currently trying to track down the owner of a box of photos.

“I came across all these treasures and I couldn’t possibly throw these away. These are history for somebody,” she said.